Blogger Pamela Jones will shut down her award-winning legal news website Groklaw following revelations that the NSA is intercepting the world's internet communications.

Jones, also known as PJ, said in a final farewell article that the shutdown of encrypted email provider Lavabit, used by whistleblower Edward Snowden, had prompted her decision to discontinue the site.

"The owner of Lavabit tells us that he's stopped using email and if we knew what he knew, we'd stop too," she said. "There is no way to do Groklaw without email. Therein lies the conundrum."

Recounting the time her apartment in New York was burgled and how she felt her privacy had been violated as a result, Jones added: "I feel like that now, knowing that persons I don't know can paw through all my thoughts and hopes and plans in my emails with you."